TIME OUT

As I sat, writing down these stories, my phone rang. A good friend of mine called with some sad news. His mother, who is currently visiting Israel, suddenly had a stroke and was in the hospital. He needed a sofer to check out her Mezuzos at once. His parents live in New Jersey. I gave him the number of a safer who makes house calls. The next evening the sofer called me to relate that he had just returned from New Jersey and had not found a single kosher Mezuzah on any of the doors. Some had deteriorated beyond repair, while others were never kosher to begin with.This, by the way, is extremely common with Mezuzos which are written on specially coated parchment. The sofer coats them in order to make his writing much easier. Yet these Mezuzos have a very short life span.

Unfortunately, many people have these Mezuzos on their doors. What a cruel hoax on the consumer!

I do hope that in the merit of the beautiful new Mezuzos he has put on the doors, his mother will have a refuah shleimah.